Crystal Palace

As the international break draws to a close, the Premier League returns as Palace face London rivals West Ham United at Selhurst Park. Both teams will be looking to keep up the race for Europe in the early stages of the campaign and the Hammers have impressed with convincing wins over Arsenal and Manchester City. However, Slaven Bilic’s side have managed back to back draws with Sunderland and Norwich City on top of a defeat to Bournemouth which have hindered their momentum and travel south with three wins in their last five games. Alan Pardew’s side are in an identical trend with three wins from their last five games and will look to extend back to back wins into a three game win streak with a tough run of fixtures coming up. The Eagles will want to keep up the same tempo..

Two weeks ago I advised you to look into your heart and see if you really wanted to keep Aguero. Now, this caused a bit of a stir before his match against Newcastle United and an even bigger stir after he scored five goals in MW8. So if you decided to keep him, congratulations on your 25 points (50 if you completely ignored my advice and captained him!) If you decided to drop him, congratulations on listening to me. You can relax knowing that you are a week ahead of the game in terms of replacing a player now set to miss a month of action. Unfortunately, Aguero was not the only significant injury that happened in the past few weeks. Manchester City also suffered injuries to key players/fantasy studs David Silva, Yaya Toure, and Aleksandr Kolarov. Liverpool have lost Danny Ings..

As we look forward to the return of the Premier League this weekend, the team at West Ham Central agreed to answer our questions in build up to the game. Q. What were your hopes and dreams for this season before a ball was kicked? To avoid relegation. With the stadium move coming up, it is key to stay in the league. After a promising start, the hope now is top half. Q. Was Slaven Bilic the unanimous choice by the fans to take over from Big Sam? Not at all. So many names were flying about, even the likes of Carlos Ancelotti and Jurgen Klopp, who were well out of our reach. Amazingly, Rafa Benitez nearly joined before receiving a call from Real Madrid, then Unai Emery from Seville turned us down so Bilic was always the safety cushion. Q. How has Bilic done so far..

Sunday saw Palace Ladies enter the Women’s FA Cup at the third qualifying round stage, in a tie that saw them host Team Solent writes chairman Richard Spokes. Looking to match or exceed the excellent efforts of the last two seasons that have seen the Eagles reach the fourth round proper, Palace had to deal with an opponent that little was known about ahead of the match. With a squad, still missing a couple of regulars, head coach Dean Davenport, was keen to use the recent momentum and depth of squad to find the result needed. On a perfect afternoon for football at Bromley Football Club in front of plenty of new faces, young families and the regular Palace faithful, the red and blue looked to seize the early initiative, but were thwarted by a very deliberate and effective game..